Hellboy: Unnatural Selection (14 page)

They passed a fenced baseball area, and more fencing enclosing a basketball court and a kids' play area. The pale concrete path curved away from them, catching some of the sparse starlight and showing them the way.

The wail died down into a moan.
She's giving birth to pain,
a woman in Ireland had told Hellboy the last time he'd heard a banshee.
She's pregnant with agony, and it births itself, so it's never ending for that poor spirit.

"This way," he said. Liz let go of his arm and walked beside him, slightly more relaxed now that the screaming had died down. They still heard groans and sobs, and at every corner Hellboy expected to come across the banshee. The sounds were so intimate, so close, that he thought perhaps it was following them, drifting through the shadows beneath the trees, and teasing them for sport. It was crying from the left, sobbing from the right, and all the time its weeping abraded his ears.

"Damn, it sounds pissed," Liz said.

"It's not a happy bunny, that's for sure."

They walked on, passing the shadows of rocks hunched down like cowering beasts. When the angle was right they could make out splashes of graffiti on the stone, exhorting love and hate and the wonder of drugs. They kept to the path, steering deeper into the park. The sobs of the banshee surrounded them, neither drawing them in nor pushing them away, and Hellboy wondered whether it even knew that they were there. It would soon. He planned on tracking it, holding it down — he had charms and trinkets in his belt pouches that would aid him in that — and quizzing it about why it was here, where it had come from. It would not be easy. And it would not be nice, putting this wretched spirit through more pain and uncertainty. But the banshee's was a small part in a much larger play. Hellboy needed to see the whole act.

Something flitted past them in the dark. Both Hellboy and Liz spun around and looked the way they had come, but there were only motionless shadows behind them. The wailing continued, though it had not seemed to grow any closer.

"What was that?" Liz said.

"Dunno ... saw it from the corner of my eye."

"Bat?"

"Bigger."

They walked on, glancing nervously behind them in case whatever it was came in for a second run.

It did, but not from behind.

A shadow emerged from the darkness before them and wrapped itself around Liz's head. She screamed, but her voice was muffled and then drowned out completely as the banshee screeched. Its sound was thunderous and desolate, and it drove Hellboy to his knees. Liz thrashed around, desperate to keep her footing, waving at her head and pummeling at the hazy shape that enveloped her. It coalesced into the image of a woman, and as Liz stumbled out from a tree's shadow, moonlight illuminated the spirits face. It was an old woman, face gray and heavily lined, mouth open wide, and lips pulled down into an image of abject misery. It looked directly at Hellboy and cried, its voice vibrating through his bones and setting his right hand shaking. He screamed, clasped his fingers tight, fisted his hand, and punched at the ground. He did not hear the impact. The banshee's voice was everything.

"Liz!" Hellboy shouted. "Down onto your knees!" But even his booming voice was drowned out by the spirit's wail, and he forced himself to stand and stumble into Liz. She sprawled to the concrete path, hands still flapping at the ghost wrapped around her head, legs kicking, and Hellboy began to wonder whether she was able to breathe in there.
Slow suffocation,
he thought.

Something shimmered around Liz's hands and feet, and it was not starlight.

"Oh, lady, now you've pissed her off," Hellboy said.

The banshee seemed to grab on tighter, and then it rose slowly from the ground, Liz still wrapped in its arms and legs. Hellboy leaped and grabbed its wrinkled gray cloak. Still the banshee and Liz rose, their ascent slowed but not halted by Hellboy's grasp. They were above his head now, his arm pointing straight up, the spirits cloak wrapped in his big hand.

"Oh, no you don't!" he said, and pulled down sharply. He felt his feet leave the ground, and a sudden sense of panic shocked him. He did not know were it came from — he'd been dropped from heights before — but his hand snapped open, and he felt the tickle of the cloak passing across his palm. "Oh no you
don't
!" Hellboy squatted, bunching muscles, and jumped as high as he could. This time he grabbed hold of Liz's ankles, one in each hand, and his weight brought her back down. The banshee shrieked again, its voice changing from miserable to angry.

And then something in Liz gave way. Whatever dam she maintained, whatever pressure valve she had been able to apply to her curse over the years, finally broke. The flickering flames on her feet and hands bloomed into expanding balls of fire, crawling up her legs and down her arms. She still batted at the insane creature hanging on to her head, but the spirit was slippery and insubstantial, not something that could be simply punched away.

Hellboy let go and dropped to the ground. This was Liz's show now.

The banshee rose again, taking the burning Liz Sherman with it. Flames erupted all across the firestarter's body, engulfing the banshee with no apparent effect, and for the first time Hellboy truly feared for Liz. The higher she went, the harder she'd fall, and while her furious fires could aid her in some instances, in this case ...

The banshee breathed fire. Its cloak erupted in flames, its hair became a burning snake dance, and its eyes grew wide before popping and melting from its head.

"Oh, that's gotta hurt," Hellboy said. He shifted to the side, positioned himself below Liz, and seconds later caught her as she dropped from the banshee's grasp. Her flames wrapped themselves around him, scorching his skin and sizzling his goatee.

"Hey, put out the fire," he said. Liz's eyes sprang open — he saw the terror in them, the rich flame of panic — and it seemed to take several seconds before she recognized him.

"Someone's going to die!" she said. "The banshee ... it told me. Someone in my family is going to die!"

Hellboy sighed, kissed Liz on the forehead. There was nothing he could say.

"Bitch!" Liz spat. "That bitch! It knows, it knows about my family, and it's
teasing
me!"

Hellboy looked up at the flaming thing a few feet above them. The banshee spun in the air, twisting and thrashing as the flames ate into its ghostly self, and he could feel no pity. "Yeah, I think it was," he said. "But now it's time to ask it a question or two."

He set Liz down and delved into his belt pouches.

"What are you looking for?" Liz asked. She stayed close to Hellboy, reluctant to lose contact with him. He could feel her fingers around his arm, her skin hot against his.

"I've got it here somewhere." Hellboy did not need to check to see if the ghost was still there; he could hear its cry, see the flames flickering across the ground, and he could even smell it. He had never smelled a ghost before. That's one of the things he liked about his job: no two days were the same.

"Er ... HB?"

Liz's voice told him there was something terribly wrong. He looked up.

The banshee had stopped screaming and was now smiling. It was a grotesque expression; the grimace had suited it more. Its melted eyes were sliding down its cheeks, bloody sockets aflame, and fire curled from its ears and nostrils. The few teeth that remained in its mouth dripped flame like thick saliva.

"Oh crap," Hellboy said.

The banshee came at him. Air rushed into its mouth and through its hair, agitating the flames and giving it a whole new roar. Hellboy turned and ran away from Liz, hoping to lure the spirit after him. He still dug in his belt, looking for the binding charm given to him by the African witch doctor back in the '70s. He was sure he still had it — couldn't remember using it, at least — but each pocket he delved into gave him nothing.

He could still hear the banshee behind him, so he ran hard. He left the path and clomped across the damp grass, heading for a huddle of large rocks that shone with reflected moonlight. He was glad the park was abandoned. That meant he could do whatever he wanted to the spirit bitch.

"Come on," he whispered. "Come to Hellboy, come on, you flaming old hag, come — "

The banshee struck him between the shoulders, driving hot fingers into his skin. He felt nails puncture his flesh, pretty sharp for an apparition. He pretended to fall, cried out in false pain, and as he rolled across the grass he brought up his hand. The eyes were resting in his palm. The old witch doctor had told him they were from a river demon, gouged out a century ago and fossilized from being buried with the bodies of a mother and her stillborn child. They bound spirits, the witch doctor said, and they held that power between them, an overwhelming magnetism. Hellboy dropped one under his tongue and readied the other.

The banshee came at him again, wailing through its terrible smile. With his sidearm Hellboy was a terrible shot. With the fossilized eye of an African river demon, he was spot on. He lobbed the eye, and it sailed straight into the banshee's throat. Its screech was cut off into a cough, its burning eye sockets went wide, and it clasped its hand to its neck. It gulped and swallowed.

"That's it for you," Hellboy said. He stood, reached for the banshee, and threw it down at his feet.

It tried to escape, and he let it. Still flaming, the banshee rose and scurried off across the grass, fast at first, then slowing, then coming to a stop before tumbling back to Hellboy's feet. It took off and rose into the air, streaming fire behind it, but it fell back down. Left or right, however hard it ran or flew, it would roll or fall back against Hellboy's steady legs.

The banshee turned to him at last, and although its eyes were ruined, he could see the fear that had appeared on its face.

"Demon!" it spat.

"That's rich." He almost kicked it, because he hated being called a demon. But then Liz was there, and he didn't like losing control in front of her, because she was someone who exercised more control than he could ever hope to possess. A single flame still fluttered at her left ear, like a butterfly settling on her skin. It wavered out as she spoke.

"So what has it got to say?"

"It says I'm a demon."

Liz glared down at the banshee. "You," she said, "had better answer Hellboy's questions. He's not real fond of being called that — "

"Or dragon," he muttered.

" — and people who call him a demon tend to end up having the living crap beaten out of them. Or the dead crap. Whatever. So."

"Demon's bitch!" the banshee said, then uttered a laugh that rose into another terrible wail.

"Oh, can it!" Hellboy shouted. "People are trying to sleep!" He punched at the flailing spirit, the impact sounding nothing like stone on flesh. The banshee flipped on the ground, the scream lessening, and it only stopped moving when Hellboy raised his fist again.

"Sorry," he muttered to Liz.

"Hey, it deserves it."

"You're bound to me by the eye of the river demon," Hellboy said. "That means you can't escape me, ever, unless I will it. Now, why did Blake send you?"

"Who's Blake?" the banshee said.

"Hmm. I was hoping that one would get you." He smashed the spirit across the jaw with his left hand. It felt like hitting thick smoke, but its head flipped around, fire splashing from its eyes like fresh blood. "So now, tell me why you're here, and where you came from, and why it is you're keeping the good people of New York awake tonight."

"Good people?
Good
people? Stinking dirty people, hateful hearts, blackened souls, rancid breaths, and polluted lives, killing the land and sending me, sending me away to that dark place."

"Polluted lives?" Hellboy said. "That's enough for me. Liz, move off a bit and call HQ. Tell them Kate was right about Blake being responsible for all this. Meantime, I'll stay here and find out where he is right now."

"Blake?" the banshee said. "Blake? I don't know Blake. Who is Blake?"

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Liz said, and she smiled as she turned away. "Remember, you demon ghost bitch, answer the nice red man, or you'll be in a world of hurt."

"Charming," Hellboy said. "I charm when I need to, and only then."

"Charming."

Liz walked away, and Hellboy went back to work on the banshee.

Liz sat on a park bench, called her report in to Tom at HQ, and lit a cigarette. She could hear the commotion in the distance as Hellboy and the banshee had their chat. She was pleased. She hoped he hurt it.
Someone is going to die!
the creature had hissed.
Someone close to you is going to die.
Liz had instantly thought of Hellboy, but then somehow the banshee had forced her to replay those terrible memories she had tried to put down for years. Her mother, her father, her little brother ... those were the faces she saw as the banshee wailed again. And it could have only been doing that to gloat.

She smoked her cigarette, looked around at the lighted buildings surrounding the park, and it sounded to Liz as though New York were coming back to life.

A few minutes later Hellboy approached across the grass. Liz could no longer hear the banshee. HB took out a cigarette and lit it, breathing in deeply and looking up at the stars. "Beautiful night," he said.

"Like no other."

"Hard old hag."

"Did it speak?"

"Of course it did. It said
London
."

"Right. I'll call that in, then I guess it's back to HQ for us."

"I guess."

"And the banshee?"

Hellboy puffed at the cigarette, and its glowing tip lit his face redder than ever. "Back in dreamland," he said. "Let's go."

A
FTER SO MANY YEARS,
so much time trying to forget her genesis, and after all the help she had received from her friends at the Bureau to forge a new life and existence in a blinkered world, Abby Paris found herself drawn once again to the Memory. Even in her dreams she had never thought to visit there again. Even in the deepest nightmares, when visions of Blake's unnatural
New Ark
haunted her, she had never found herself tempted back to that dark place that had once been her home. It was partly fear, and a desire to disassociate herself from anything Blake had been, but it was also terror at the idea of revealing her deceit to Abe. She had told him and the Bureau that she had no memory of her early life, and she had weathered the tests they had conducted. As far as they were concerned, she was a blank slate upon which they could help her create a whole new history. In fact, Abby knew that her slate was already tainted, and the writing there was dreadful.